This invention relates to wet egg yolk and egg products. More particularly it relates to wet egg yolk and egg products which ae low in cholesterol and high in polyunsaturated fat content and it relates to processes for obtaining same.
Health experts and physicians generally agree today that an important contributing cause of heart and circulatory disease is the consumption of foods high in cholesterol and having a fat content the majority of which is saturated fat. Thus they place great value on foods which are low in cholesterol and which also preferably have a fat content balanced between the polyunsaturates and saturates.
Egg has always been recognized as one of the most nutritious and popular foods. Unfortunately egg yolk is very high in cholesterol content, comprising approximately 1.7% of the egg yolk weight. Furthermore about 1/3 of the yolk weight is fat. Fatty acid analysis shows that the fat content of an average yolk is 35.4% saturated fat (principally palmitic and stearic acids), 49.1% monounsaturated fat (oleic acid), and 15.5% polyunsaturated fat (linoleic acid). Thus the ratio of polyunsaturated fat to saturated fat, hereafter referred to as P/S ratio, is less than 1 to 2, an undesirable balance.
It would therefore be advantageous if egg products could be obtained retaining the beneficial content (e.g. protein) while reducing the potentially harmful cholesterol level and increasing the P/S ratio. It would further be desirable to do this while retaining the functionality, appearance and taste of natural eggs which would yield good texture upon being cooked thus avoiding dried egg products and the like.
No method until this invention is known to have been developed to produce wet egg yolk low in cholesterol. Throughout the description of this invention by wet egg yolk is meant yolk in which the natural water content has been substantially retained. Previously solvents for fats and oils such as diethyl ether, methylene chloride, ethyl acetate, hexane, benzene and the like have been used to extract the total fat content and thus the cholesterol, from wet or dried egg yolk. Because of the nature of the solvents the yolk when cooked has a poor taste and texture. If wet egg yolk is used it must be dried to remove the residual solvent. In either case the end product is dehydrated egg yolk. Other low-cholesterol egg products are either partially synthetic or contain no egg yolk at all.